Italian Meringue Buttercream Recipe - Gretchen's Vegan Bakery (2024)

FAQs

Why won t my Italian meringue buttercream stiffen? ›

Chilling it may help. You can just put the bowl in the fridge for 30 minutes or if you're using a hand blender you can set the bowl in a larger bowl with some ice. You can also try adding more butter a tablespoon at a time once the meringue has cooled. Butter should be cool but malleable, not too soft.

ITALIAN BUTTERCREAM

Pros – It is soft, smooth and not too sweet. It also gives you those sharp edges on a cake – it is just not as easy to smooth as the Swiss. Cons – It takes a while for the eggs whites/sugar mixture to cool down in the mixer. But you can just leave it running and go do other things.

So, whether your buttercream is a veritable soup or just a touch runny, the answer is to cool it down. If the buttercream is thin enough to run off a spoon, refrigerate the whole bowl for 20 minutes, just until the frosting begins to harden around the edges.

To avoid over-whipping, keep your mixer at medium-high speed, rather than going full speed ahead. Once the sugar syrup has been added to an Italian meringue, it will become much more stable, and overbeating will be less of an issue.

To remedy a soupy buttercream, all you have to do is chill it. I place the entire mixing bowl containing the buttercream including the attachment in the fridge. The timing will depend on the amount of buttercream you're trying to make but start with 5 minutes.

Swiss Meringue

Also more simply known as Swiss Buttercream, this buttercream is popular amongst the professionals. It is more difficult and time-consuming to create than American Buttercream, but it's silky smooth and light texture makes it worth the extra effort.

Italian meringue is very similar to Swiss, but instead of being cooked with sugar, a sugar syrup is made separately and added to whipped egg whites. Italian meringue is slightly more stable than Swiss, which I'll explain under the Italian meringue buttercream heading.

Using less butter than what is required for the amount of meringue in this recipe may yield a runny frosting. It also very important to make sure that the meringue has completely cooled before adding it to the beaten butter.

It's essential to sieve your icing sugar (aka confectioners sugar) before adding to the softened butter, so do this first. Then you're going to add little by little to the vegan buttercream frosting, beating between additions. This again stops the buttercream from splitting or becoming grainy.

If you're not adding enough sugar, your buttercream won't be stable enough to hold its shape for long. If you're adding a little plant-based milk to thin the buttercream when frosting a cake, you might be adding too much of it, again, making it too unstable.

What do vegan bakers use instead of butter? ›

What are good vegan butter substitutes? In baking, you can use vegan butter, applesauce, dairy-free yogurt, coconut oil, coconut butter, olive oil, nut butter, mashed banana and mashed avocado. In cooking, you can use olive oil, coconut oil, vegetable stock, or avocado oil to replace butter.

If the buttercream splits and looks curdled, like cottage cheese, it means the mixture didn't emulsify because the temperature of the butter was either too cold or the meringue was still too warm. There's a few different ways to fix this: Remove a few spoonfuls of the buttercream and place it in a heat safe bowl.

Italian buttercream can be left at room temperature for 2-3 days. I usually refrigerate leftover buttercream if I'm not going to use it in 24 hours. It can be frozen for 6 months or more. Bring the buttercream to room temperature and re-whip until it's a smooth consistency before you use it.

A buttercream that has separated is also sometimes referred to as “broken.” The buttercream will often have unattractive lumps and curds, an indication that the butter in your buttercream is too cold.

If it's still not reaching stiff peaks, stop the mixer, place the bowl in the refrigerator for 10 minutes, then return to the mixer and continue beating until stiff peaks form. If the bowl and meringue still feel warm at this point, wait until both cool to room temperature (around 70°F (21°C)) before adding the butter.

If your butter is too soft or your kitchen is too warm, your buttercream may have a hard time getting to stiff or medium consistency. If your buttercream looks like it's melting, place it in the refrigerator for a bit to harden before beating again.

You can try adding powdered sugar to the Italian meringue too. That should thicken it up. Here is the Wilton recipe for the shortening based icing. Combine water and meringue powder and whip at high speeds until peaks form.